Two Pinocchios for Hillary on Hobby Lobby

posted at 8:01 am on July 3, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Lawyers in politics seem to have great difficulty understanding the law these days. First, the “constitutional lawyer who sits in the Oval Office” had his hat handed to him by the Supreme Court on a wide range of issues, and with unprecedented unanimity. Now the woman angling to succeed him, who is often described as an accomplished attorney herself, apparently can’t be bothered to familiarize herself with a case before rendering judgment on it. Hillary Clinton gets two Pinocchios from the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler for her remarks on the Hobby Lobby case, but probably deserved two more for sheer dishonesty.

This is what Clinton said at the Aspen Ideas Festival:

“It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health-care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.”

Actually, the case doesn’t involve Hobby Lobby’s position on what its employees do. The case hinges on what Hobby Lobby has to provide to its employees as part of regulation from HHS. As Kessler points out, Hobby Lobby covers 16 of the 20 required contraception methods, but objects to four abortifacients. Hobby Lobby has never taken the position that its employees should not use contraception; in fact, as their attorney said shortly after their victory at the Supreme Court, they’d really prefer not to be part of that decision at all.

Anyone who spent even a brief period of time studying this case would know these basic facts of the Hobby Lobby challenge. A competent attorney who didn’t do even that small amount of research would know not to comment on it without first checking the facts. An attorney who’s also prepping a run for the presidency who comments on the case without knowing it is engaging in deliberate demagoguery.

Hillary Clinton isn’t alone in that effort, either. We’ve heard plenty of shrieking from the Left over the supposed setback this decision creates for women, but that’s sheer nonsense. Nothing’s changed, as I note in my column for The Fiscal Times, and the court ruled properly on the RFRA:

[O]ne cannot expect to get off the hook by simply claiming that a federal regulation impedes on one’s religious belief. Congress specifically addressed this balancing act between religious liberty and the need for regulatory authority in 1993 with the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act (RFRA), on which the Hobby Lobby case largely hinged.

Congress passed it unanimously in the House and 97-3 in the Senate after the Supreme Court’s Employment Division v Smith decision refused unemployment benefits to two Native Americans fired for having used peyote in their rituals. Religious expression should only be “substantially burdened,” Congress responded in nearly one voice, “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest,” and then only by “the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

That applies to health decisions as well. As Justice Samuel Alito noted in his Hobby Lobby decision , other mandates for coverage meet this test, explicitly noting items such as vaccinations and blood transfusions. Blood transfusions are necessary for survival in some cases, while vaccinations are not just critical for individual health but also communal health, as thousands of studies confirm.

These examples show, though, just how silly and insubstantial the contraception and sterilization coverage mandate is in terms of compelling government interest. Contraception in almost all of its forms is inexpensive and widely available. Furthermore, although HHS considers contraception preventive medicine, it doesn’t prevent disease or block the spread of contagion, unless one considers babies a plague.

Besides, there is no crisis in accessing contraception. As noted above, the CDC’s 26-year study of unplanned pregnancies (1982-2008) shows that 99 percent of all sexually active women seeking to avoid pregnancy accessed contraception. Access to contraception is such a non-issue that the word “access” only appears once in the entire report, and that in a footnote about access to health insurance. So despite all of the shouts of doom, nothing in this decision impacts the already-universal access to contraception Americans have had for the last four decades.

Returning to Kessler, one claim of his should get a review by the fact-checker. He may have missed the reports on rulings handed down after Hobby Lobby, because he concludes by saying that it’s not clear how the decision will impact other employers who object to covering any kind of contraception:

In the specific case, the company on religious grounds objected to four of 20 possible options, leaving other possible types of contraceptives available to female employees — though not necessarily the most effective or necessary at the moment. It remains to be seen whether the lower courts will interpret the ruling as allowing some companies to institute a broader ban on coverage, so Clinton was leaping to an assumption about the impact on employees.

Actually, we have seen how the court has interpreted it. Kessler needs to amend his conclusion, but only to the extent that the Supreme Court has signaled that Hobby Lobby allows for a broad conscience exemption. In all of those cases, though, the status quo has remained constant — and there still is no access crisis in contraception in the US.

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“It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health-care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.”

Why is it the employers responsibility to pay for contraception in the first place? Killary asserts that the only problem here is that some slut isn’t given any kind of contraception including birth control at no cost to the slut.

Food and gas are pretty expensive too, why isn’t she demanding the employer pay for those things too?

Big distinction Ed that the left refuses to acknowledge …..they’ve got their war on women to focus on

cmsinaz on July 3, 2014 at 8:12 AM

Katie Pavlich was guest hosting on local talk radio this morning. Whoever the GOP nominee in 2016 is, they need this woman to head up the messaging on refuting the mythical war on women- the one where it is a crime against humanity when a woman is reduced to having to choose among just 16 kinds of contraception.

If women are provided abortifacients by their insurance thru their employers, wouldn’t Planned Parenthood be hardest hit? The left, it seems, is hurting the one they love, but then, the one they love is really the idea of abortions being performed not necessarily who’s doing it.

The left WANTS the businessess to get into their business by paying for their contraception…..they don’t get it do they

cmsinaz on July 3, 2014 at 8:26 AM

Oh! The left gets it. They want to regulate every aspect of our lives. It kills them that they can’t force the Green family to provide an in-store abortion facility for employees. Right next to the room for breast-feeding and the chapel for gay weddings.

But then, for all of that they protest about wanting rosaries out of their ovaries. I wonder if the despicable crap weasel Kessler has ever fact checked that bit of hypocrisy.

This decision should also then impact the photographer and baker who were wrongly penalized for their religious objections. If access is the issue, the gay couples involved in those cases had free access to several other photographers and bakers who would be glad to take their pictures and bake them a cake. Instead, the photographer and the baker were compelled to close or attenuate their business, even though they were being asked to endorse, no matter how tacitly, a practice that is flatly against their religious beliefs, the most foundational of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

From the immediacy of the outburst on the left and Hillary’s obviously rehearsed performance, I can’t help but believe that this whole brouhaha has been planned for a while and has been ginned up to deflect attention from current real problems. This is going to be used to continue the “war on women’ BS right up to election day.

From the immediacy of the outburst on the left and Hillary’s obviously rehearsed performance, I can’t help but believe that this whole brouhaha has been planned for a while and has been ginned up to deflect attention from current real problems.

oldernwiser on July 3, 2014 at 8:48 AM

The feigned moral outrage is old and rehearsed but I truly think that the ruling for Hobby Lobby came as a shock to the left.

- Sooooo, Obamacare is implemented with the excuse of covering the “millions of uninsured”.

- It has, in its 2500+ pages of regulations, one single thing good which intends to reduce/eliminate employer based health insurance in favor of individual based insurance (how it does it is atrocious, but that’s a different issue).

- BUT, according to the same people that created the “individual market” of Obamacare, we were told that women couldn’t fence for themselves (don’t recall NOW and feminists being offended by this) and that contraception had to be provided for free by the employer.

- Some employers deny to pay for 4 pills considered abortifacients based on their business practices (their religious views affect their practices such a Chick-Fil-A not opening on Sundays).

- The same people who, for months, have been telling us how great Obamacare is cos people are no longer “tied to their jobs” for insurance throw a hissy fit because people are not tied to the jobs for (a very minute) part of their coverage.

Why is it the employers responsibility to pay for contraception in the first place?

Happy Nomad on July 3, 2014 at 8:07 AM

I can’t really tell if the left is being stupid or disingenuous here, although I suppose those two options are not mutually exclusive, but different insurance policies routinely cover different things. My wife’s insurance covers things that mine does not and vice-versa. And it’s fairly common for insurance not cover elective procedures, such as plastic surgery or even laser eye surgery. And yet, no one talks about rights being violated here. And birth control is elective in most cases. Some insurance policies don’t even cover fertility treatments that have an underlying medical cause, unless the underlying medical cause has other effects, such as causing the person pain or discomfort. But, again, I never hear about the lack of coverage of fertility treatments as being a violation of rights or a “war on women”.

At any rate, I highly doubt that the left would be terribly bothered by some environmentalist who owned a business and refused to pay for insurance that covered pregnancy and fertility because he or she believes that the earth is overpopulated.

What’s really frustrating about all of this is the fact that 2014 exit polling will show there is a certain percentage of women who do indeed believe that conservatives and Republicans are tying to limit their access to contraceptives or take them away.

That’s the whole purpose of the left’s demagoguery of and lying about this decision.

A competent attorney who didn’t do even that small amount of research would know not to comment on it without first checking the facts. An attorney who’s also prepping a run for the presidency who comments on the case without knowing it is engaging in deliberate demagoguery.

Exactly. Remember:

“I don’t know all the facts of the case, but it’s clear that the police acted stupidly.” — Barry Hussein Obama (sitting president, and reputed constitutional law scholar, commenting with prejudicial effect, on a local police matter in which he admitted he did not know the facts).

Jumping to erroneous conclusions and blatant demagoguery is all these Dims know how to do.

Clinton is a deranged lying mentally incompetent, useful idiot abortion fanatic bigot obsessed with forcing her religious views on others with her own lawlessness, abusing the law when it suits her and her psychotic delusions of godhood where she’s stupid & arrogant enough to imagine she’s among the enlightened that are superior to others, versus the obvious fact that she’s consistently utterly clueless & in the dark on about almost everything, like Bubba.

Let the record reflect that the decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores changed absolutely none of the following:

* Griswold v Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), which recognised the rights of married couples to use contraception and marital privacy, as well as the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Stanley v Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), which recognised an implied right of privacy.

* Eisenstadt v Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), which recognised the right of unmarried couples to use contraception and affirmed the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), or Doe v Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), which recognised the right to abortion and affirmed the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Carey v Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), which held that states cannot limit the dissemination of contraceptives to licenced pharmacists or prohibit advertisements of contraceptives, and the right of an individual, married or single, to be free of unwarranted governmental intrusion in the area of personal decisions regarding intimate relations.

* Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), which reaffirmed the right to terminate a pregnancy and held that a woman does not need consent to have an abortion – even from her husband – while upholding parental consent for minors, informed consent, and a 24-hour waiting period.

* Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), which reaffirmed the fundamental right of consenting adults to engage in private sexual activity even if they are of the same sex.

Contrary to that being claimed by the idiots, the Court in Hobby Lobby did not – I repeat, DID NOT – hold in any way, shape, or form that an employer could dictate to its employees whether and/or which type of contraception they could use. Let me be clear:

Hobby Lobby merely allows a company not to have to pay for the contraception of its employees. It certainly doesn’t prevent employees from acquiring free contraception from, say, Planned Parenthood or purchasing whatever they want with their own funds. Arguing otherwise is just beyond stupid. It is akin to claiming that a company, which has divested from the fossil fuel industry, can order their employees not to use any fossil fuels outside of the place of employment. I will note, however, that many of those screaming about fabled desires to create a theocracy or for-profit corporations dictating to their employees are the same people that have absolutely no problem whatsoever with employers making the use of tobacco anywhere a terminable offence.

…

This case has absolutely nothing to do with ‘GET YOUR BOARDROOM OUT OF MY BEDROOM!’ Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I can’t really tell if the left is being stupid or disingenuous here, although I suppose those two options are not mutually exclusive, but different insurance policies routinely cover different things. My wife’s insurance covers things that mine does not and vice-versa. And it’s fairly common for insurance not cover elective procedures, such as plastic surgery or even laser eye surgery. And yet, no one talks about rights being violated here. And birth control is elective in most cases. Some insurance policies don’t even cover fertility treatments that have an underlying medical cause, unless the underlying medical cause has other effects, such as causing the person pain or discomfort. But, again, I never hear about the lack of coverage of fertility treatments as being a violation of rights or a “war on women”.

At any rate, I highly doubt that the left would be terribly bothered by some environmentalist who owned a business and refused to pay for insurance that covered pregnancy and fertility because he or she believes that the earth is overpopulated.

This. I have come to the conclusion that the Left, led by the likes of President Obama, Senator Reid, Mrs Clinton, know the attention span of the public. They have perfected the soundbite that MIGHT catch the ear of the public regardless of the truth in it and that is all that matters to them. They have very little respect for the American people’s ability to discern truth. For good reason.

I don’t think she is so dumb as to get this so completely wrong. It is a deliberate strategy.

Let the record reflect that the decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores changed absolutely none of the following:

* Griswold v Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), which recognised the rights of married couples to use contraception and marital privacy, as well as the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Stanley v Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), which recognised an implied right of privacy.

* Eisenstadt v Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), which recognised the right of unmarried couples to use contraception and affirmed the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), or Doe v Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), which recognised the right to abortion and affirmed the fundamental individual right to decide whether or not to beget or bear a child.

* Carey v Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), which held that states cannot limit the dissemination of contraceptives to licenced pharmacists or prohibit advertisements of contraceptives, and the right of an individual, married or single, to be free of unwarranted governmental intrusion in the area of personal decisions regarding intimate relations.

* Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), which reaffirmed the right to terminate a pregnancy and held that a woman does not need consent to have an abortion – even from her husband – while upholding parental consent for minors, informed consent, and a 24-hour waiting period.

* Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), which reaffirmed the fundamental right of consenting adults to engage in private sexual activity even if they are of the same sex.

Contrary to that being claimed by the idiots, the Court in Hobby Lobby did not – I repeat, DID NOT – hold in any way, shape, or form that an employer could dictate to its employees whether and/or which type of contraception they could use. Let me be clear:

Hobby Lobby merely allows a company not to have to pay for the contraception of its employees. It certainly doesn’t prevent employees from acquiring free contraception from, say, Planned Parenthood or purchasing whatever they want with their own funds. Arguing otherwise is just beyond stupid. It is akin to claiming that a company, which has divested from the fossil fuel industry, can order their employees not to use any fossil fuels outside of the place of employment. I will note, however, that many of those screaming about fabled desires to create a theocracy or for-profit corporations dictating to their employees are the same people that have absolutely no problem whatsoever with employers making the use of tobacco anywhere a terminable offence.

…

This case has absolutely nothing to do with ‘GET YOUR BOARDROOM OUT OF MY BEDROOM!’ Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health-care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.

Ed, as far as the caterwauling from the Left has been going, this doesn’t misrepresent the case so badly. What she has expressed is essentially true from the perspective of the employee. My question is whether this is, in fact, troubling. Let’s reword that statement for another context.

It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs Laser-Eye Surgery, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health-care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be having Laser-Eye Surgery.

At least where I live, everyone has to pay for their own Laser-Eye surgery, because glasses are a functional and more affordable alternative. Why is it troubling merely because it’s expensive? How many expensive things are there that would make our lives easier, where this exact same logic would apply? This is just leaning on people for free stuff.

When you put the snippet highlighted by Ed of what Her Royal Thighness said, it is actually worse:

‘It’s the first time that our court has said that a closely held corporation has the rights of a person when it comes to religious freedom, which means the corporation’s … [‘closely held’] employers can impose their religious beliefs on their employees, and, of course, denying women the right to contraceptives as part of a health care plan is exactly that. I find it deeply disturbing that we are going in that direction.

It’s very troubling that a sales clerk at Hobby Lobby who need contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.

Part of the reason I was so adamant about including women and girls [in State Department efforts] is that they’re often the canaries in the mine. It is a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are unstable, anti-democratic, and prone to extremism. Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people—men—to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers.‘

Does she just blather on without even looking into what the Supreme Court decision was about? Why, yes, she does. It’s ok, Hillary, we know what you were thinking, if Sandra Fluke said it it must be true so I’ll just jump on her bandwagon! Hurry up, someone give me a mic so I can mimic Sandra Fluke! And speaking of Sandra Fluke, one would think that she’d been humiliated enough after all her talk about free contraception being some kind of right.

See, e.g., 724 F. 3d, at 385 (‘We do not see how a for-profit, ‘artificial being,’ . . . that was created to make money’ could exercise religion); Grote v Sebelius, 708 F. 3d 850, 857 (CA7 2013) (Rovner, J. dissenting) (‘So far as it appears, the mission of Grote Industries, like that of any other for-profit, secular business, is to make money in the commercial sphere’); Autocam Corp. v Sebelius, 730 F. 3d 618, 626 (CA7 2013) (‘Congress did not intend to include corporations primarily organized for secular, profit-seeking purposes as ‘persons’ under RFRA’); see also 723 F. 3d, at 1171–1172 (Briscoe, C. J., dissenting) (‘[T]he specific purpose for which [a corporation] is created matters greatly to how it will be categorized and treated under the law” and “it is undisputed that Hobby Lobby and Mardel are for-profit corporations focused on selling merchandise to consumers’).

The principal dissent makes a similar point, stating that ‘[f]or-profit corporations are different from religious nonprofits in that they use labor to make a profit, rather than to perpetuate the religious values shared by a community of believers.’ Post, at 18–19 (internal quotation marks omitted). The first half of this statement is a tautology; for- profit corporations do indeed differ from nonprofits insofar as they seek to make a profit for their owners, but the second part is factually untrue. As the activities of the for-profit corporations involved in these cases show, some for-profit corporations do seek ‘to perpetuate the religious values shared,’ in these cases, by their owners. Conestoga’s Vision and Values Statement declares that the company is dedicated to operating ‘in [a] manner that reflects our Christian heritage and the highest ethical and moral principles of business.’ App. in No. 13–356, p. 94. Similarly, Hobby Lobby’s statement of purpose proclaims that the company ‘is committed to . . . Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating . . . in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.’ App. in No. 13–354, p. 135. The dissent also believes that history is not on our side because even Blackstone recognized the distinction between ‘ecclesiastical and lay’ corporations. Post, at 18. What Blackstone illustrates, however, is that dating back to 1765, there was no sharp divide among corporations in their capacity to exercise religion; Blackstone recognized that even what he termed ‘lay’ corporations might serve ‘the promotion of piety.’ 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 458–459 (1765). And whatever may have been the case at the time of Blackstone, modern corporate law (and the law of the States in which these three companies are incorporated) allows for-profit corporations to ‘perpetuat[e] religious values.’

Lawyers in politics seem to have great difficulty understanding the law these days. First, the “constitutional lawyer who sits in the Oval Office” had his hat handed to him by the Supreme Court on a wide range of issues, and with unprecedented unanimity.

President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a “lawyer”. He surrendered his license back in 2008 possibly to escape charges that he “fibbed” on his bar application.

It’s time to stop quoting the WaPo “fact checker.” All you’re doing is feeding the delusion that they actually are fair-minded referees trying to root out lies and distortions.

Now, if you want to fact check the fact checkers, that at least makes a little sense. But just quoting them as if they are really objective fact checkers is feeding their delusion. It’s a lot like giving a teenage boy a “sex change” operation because he feels female, rather than helping him accept the reality of how he was born.

Anyone who spent even a brief period of time studying this case would know these basic facts of the Hobby Lobby challenge. A competent attorney who didn’t do even that small amount of research would know not to comment on it without first checking the facts. An attorney who’s also prepping a run for the presidency who comments on the case without knowing it is engaging in deliberate demagoguery.

Which is precisely why Chris Christie declined to give an opinion on the case when surprised by the question in an interview on CNBC, a business TV channel, which he thought was going to be about his state budget and pension plans. He said exactly what he should said knowing little about the case.

Hillary waved off a question about the RFRA in this case, stating that it didn’t apply. However, the first words of the first paragraph of Alito’s decision cite the act:

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) prohibits the “Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person —(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb–1(a), (b). As amended by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), RFRA covers “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” §2000cc–5(7)(A).

I’ll have to do some research but I’m wondering if I missed something. Since contraception is now considered “health care” under some whacked definition and Sandra Fluke can get us to pay for her birth control pills, does that mean they are going to pay for my Trojan’s? Those things can get expensive if you buy them in bulk.

I don’t want to sound ignorant but I have a question about Obama care. What happens to women to perhaps have a huge deductible like 5or 6 thousand dollars can afford that??? If they can afford such huge deductibles than they should be able to pay for the small prices on birth control. The bottom line is that the left wants their abortions paid for and they will lie and twist facts to get it.

Bill and Hillary Clinton should be in prison for crimes against humanity for what they did to their fellow citizens at Waco, TX, on April 19, 1993. The Waco Massacre and church burning (it was not a “compound,” it was their church),was the most brutal, heinous violation of civil, human and Constitutional rights in this nation’s history. Innocent men, women and children were attacked with tanks, poison gas (CS gas turns to cyanide when heated) and burned alive. Those who ran from the church were machine-gunned as documented in the movie “Waco, The Rules of Engagement.” If you doubt how bad this was consider that you never hear the left stream media talk about it. They want it erased from history but this memorial site will remain forever:
www . wizardsofaz . com/waco/waco2 . html
And if that weren’t bad enough, Clinton’s thugs then stuck a machine gun in the face of a 5 year old boy and sent him to the communist gulag known as Cuba: www . therealcuba . com/elian_gonzalez . htm
Let’s hope Clinton isn’t teaching President Prompter too many of his old tricks!
Here is a list of the children murdered at Waco:
Lisa Martin 13, Sheila Martin, Jr. 15, Rachel Sylvia 12, Hollywood Sylvia 1,
Joseph Martinez 8, Abigail Martinez 11, Crystal Martinez 3 Isaiah Martinez 4
Audrey Martinez 13, Melissa Morrison 6, Chanel Andrade 1, Cyrus Koresh 8
Star Koresh 6, Bobbie Lane Koresh 2, Dayland Gent 3, Page Gent 1,
Mayanah Schneider 2, Startle Summers 1, Serenity Jones 4, Chica Jones 2,
Little One Jones 2

Anyone know where is Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi (FBI-HRT Sniper) these days?
He headshot a young mother Vicki Weaver while she held her INFANT in her arms at Ruby Ridge and made his way to Waco, TX to add to his ‘kill list’.

It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health-care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.

It’s actually fairly accurate. The employee is not getting contraception through the employer’s health plan because the employer doesn’t want her to get contraception through the plan.

Actually, we have seen how the court has interpreted it. Kessler needs to amend his conclusion, but only to the extent that the Supreme Court has signaled that Hobby Lobby allows for a broad conscience exemption.

Your statement is at least as inaccurate as Hillary’s. For now, the conscience exemption only applies to contraception under closely-held for-profit corporations with religious owners.

What Blackstone illustrates, however, is that dating back to 1765, there was no sharp divide among corporations in their capacity to exercise religion; Blackstone recognized that even what he termed ‘lay’ corporations might serve ‘the promotion of piety.’ 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 458–459 (1765). And whatever may have been the case at the time of Blackstone, modern corporate law (and the law of the States in which these three companies are incorporated) allows for-profit corporations to ‘perpetuat[e] religious values.’

It’s the first time that our court has said that a closely held corporation has the rights of a person when it comes to religious freedom, which means the corporation’s … [‘closely held’] employers can impose their religious beliefs on their employees, and, of course, denying women the right to contraceptives as part of a health care plan is exactly that. I find it deeply disturbing that we are going in that direction.

Blackstone is a Hornbook (summation of the law), rather than a case. “Piety” is religious devotion, but it’s not necessary connected to the practice of only one religion. Modern corporate (Delaware) and the state laws are generally statutory, not case law. I’m unaware of any state decision that says corporations (close) can practice religion.

So, Hillary is right about “this being the first time a court” has said this. And I agree with the larger implications of this case regarding a constitutional right to practice religion by these corporations.

I was suddenly struck with a hollow “all gone” sick feeling this morning when I realized that as deceitful and as she is…and as ashamed as I would feel to have the Clinton pair back in our White House…we would be several levels better off and less likely to be completely overtaken by our enemies than we are now! Dear God…

This decision should also then impact the photographer and baker who were wrongly penalized for their religious objections. If access is the issue, the gay couples involved in those cases had free access to several other photographers and bakers who would be glad to take their pictures and bake them a cake. Instead, the photographer and the baker were compelled to close or attenuate their business, even though they were being asked to endorse, no matter how tacitly, a practice that is flatly against their religious beliefs, the most foundational of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

College Prof on July 3, 2014 at 8:45 AM

Yes. Even though the Hobby Lobby decision ultimately dealt only with the federal statute, there’s language in it for the photographer and baker to use in their cases.

Ed–I take back what I said. I didn’t realize the Supreme Court had granted a temporary stay to Wheaton College which apparently lets the College sign a statement only to the government. You’re plugged in better than the publicly-available news.